As many as 1,200 mentally ill adults, scores of them living in the Lake Norman area, could be forced out of assisted-living facilities as the state tries to enforce a Medicaid rule concerning mental health care centers.
The rule requires assisted-living facilities with more than 16 beds have no more than half of their residents diagnosed with a mental illness. The rule is decades old, but the state is now asking the homes to comply or fall under the designation of “institution of mental disease.” Mentally ill residents in those facilities cannot receive Medicaid funding.
